In a Nutshell
by Llandaryn
Summary: Observations of the world by Tally - thief extraordinaire.


In a Nutshell

_Of Beginnings_

My name is Tally, and I am a thief.

Let me guess; your hands just casually wandered over to your pockets, patting with gentle, unobtrusive movements as you checked if your possessions were still on your person. At the same time, little thoughts passed through your mind, like sparrows flitting through the trees; "How long until she steals from me?" "I wonder where she hides all her loot." "Has she ever killed anybody?" These are the thoughts that probably passed through your mind just now. And I can't say that I blame you.

What is a thief, but somebody who steals? Through means nefarious, they break into places that they are not supposed to be, and take that which does not belong to them. I always joke to my friends that I'm not really a thief, but an archaeologist. I mean, it's not like there's really a difference, right?

Wrong. The difference is in intent. Scholars have the best of intentions; to learn about other cultures and civilisations, and to educate others about the past. My intentions, whilst not as dark and gluttonous as some of my brethren, are not exactly wholesome either. You see, I like a challenge. A mystery. Most of the time I don't care about owning things, nor do I care for money.

Now you're wondering how my obsession started; after all, every adventurer has a 'trigger' in their life, something that sets them off on the path to fame and fortune. Maybe their parents were killed by bandits, and they are motivated by revenge or justice (sometimes I don't believe there's a difference). Maybe they had a wise and benevolent tutor, who instilled in them a desire to do good within the Realms. Maybe they were orphaned as a child, forced to fend for themselves, to grow up faster than a child should. These are all interesting backgrounds, worthy of any bard's tale. My 'trigger' was rather less glorious.

I was born in a tiny Mere village called West Harbor. After the death of my mother, I was raised by an Elven man who was known to the others of the village as 'Daeghun', but to me was known only as 'father'. Daeghun had never had children of his own. His wife, Shayla, had died at the same time as my mother, and their relationship before that had been childless. For the first few years Daeghun muddled through parenthood as best he could, with the advice of Retta Starling; my best friend Bevil's mother. Retta hailed originally from Neverwinter, and it just so happened that as my seventh birthday approached, she was returning there for a short trip to visit relatives. Daeghun gave her some coins, and asked her to buy me something "nice" for my birthday.

His description was well-intentioned, but rather vague. He had no idea what to buy a child, and was content to leave the whole thing to Retta's judgment. And so it was that when she returned, Retta gave me my birthday present; a beautiful pearl necklace presented in a music box. I was immediately enthralled. But not, to both Retta and my father's consternation, with the necklace.

When open, the music box displayed an elven couple, dancing around and around on the spot to a pleasant, tinkling little tune. A key, turned in the back, powered the whole thing, and I drove Daeghun crazy, playing it over and over and over again. I played it so much that, after a few days of tortuous dancing, the tiny wooden elven couple simply gave up their will to continue, and the whole thing broke. Although he never so much as smiled, I could tell that Daeghun was pleased.

The breaking of my favoured toy made me start to wonder; how did it work? Why had it broken? What, exactly, did the key _do_? Determined to not only discover how my toy worked, but also to fix it, I armed myself with my father's tools and charged bravely into battle. Off came the cover, the boxing that protected the whole thing. Gently out came the Wooden Elves (and to this day, whenever I meet a Wood Elf, I get an image of a tiny Elven couple dancing around to my box's tune), and within minutes I had exposed the guts of the music box. There were things inside which I had never seen before, which I had no words for. In hindsight, I can describe these things as 'gears', 'cogs' and 'levers'. Back then they were just tiny wondrous magical things which made the music and the dancing work.

I spent days locked away in my room, carefully experimenting with the innards of the box, making careful schematic diagrams that reminded me which part affected which other part. During this time I refused to see Bevil, and even Amie, my other best friend, could not convince me to come out and play. I left my room only to fetch food and drink, and then returned to my solitude. I suspect that my father thought I was sulking, melancholy over the destruction of my favourite toy. Imagine his surprise (and his despair) when one evening I approached him as he sat reading in his chair, hands behind my back, and patiently waited for him to look up before I produced my box with a flourish and lifted the lid, allowing the music to play once more.

At seven years old I had won my first victory. From then on, my desire to learn about everything mechanical was insatiable. I started with small things; the inner-workings of locks, and the keys which opened them. I learnt about all different sorts of locking mechanisms. I learnt, for example, that the lock on Retta Starling's pantry was easily pickable, but the lock which guarded Tarmas' arcane secrets was not only mechanical, but also magical, and delivered quite a nasty electric shock if you didn't open it correctly the first time.

From the merchant who came through West Harbor twice I year I bought new locks, new boxes, new tools. Some were of Dwarven construction, some Elvish, and he even had one or two Gnomish items. Soon I learnt not only how to open locks, but how to make my own, intricate things that only I knew how to open. And I didn't stop there. Before long I was making regular forays into the swamp, creeping around the Illefarn ruins, examining all the old construction work within them, often hiding from the Lizardmen tribes as I did so.

Many of the adults within the village considered the Lizardlings to be dangerous. To my childish mind, it was merely a game of hide and seek, and so long as I was better at it than the Lizardmen, it wasn't a problem. During the next few years of my life, I became part archaeologist, part engineer, part stalker. And on the few occasions where my skill at taking to shadows failed me, and the Lizardmen raised their cries of 'intruder', I became part champion sprinter.

Druids will tell you that it is through play that lion cubs learn the skills they will use as adults; they tousle with their siblings, pounce on unwary beetles that pass by, and stalk anything that catches their eye. They groom each other, they form hierarchies, they pretend to roar, and they imitate their elders. They learn from each other, and from their environment, how to behave, and they grow up learning how to be lions.

The adults around me, with the exception of Daeghun, Georg, Brother Merring and Tarmas, were farmers. I had absolutely no intention of becoming a farmer; farming held no challenge for me. It was a good and necessary job for many people, of course (without foundations, a building crumbles; so it is with society) but I avoided my father's gentle suggestions that maybe I should go and help Orlen to plow his fields, since his sons were feeling unwell, or maybe give aid to Lewy Jones as he dosed his pigs with their monthly medicine. Faced with the choice between having adventures in the swamp, or ploughing fields and dosing pigs, what would you have done? Naturally, I rebelled.

Daeghun enlisted the help of other adults to try and rein me in. He turned first to Retta, being closest to her and knowing that women sometimes have things in common, such as... liking shoes, and wearing aprons, and baking cakes. We soon discovered that I had no talent for baking, and Retta gratefully sent me back to Daeghun. Don't get me wrong; she was as fond of me as I was of her. It was Retta who taught me about growing up as a woman, who told me about things Daeghun hadn't even considered dicussing with me. She told myself and Amie, who was also orphaned and being raised by Tarmas, about the facts of life. What to expect during menses, what men expect from women, what any decent woman should say to a man who might make such inappropriate suggestions, where babies come from, and all that.

Next was Tarmas. Worried that I might start becoming a disruptive influence to other children, especially Amie who was two years my junior, Daeghun sent me off every day to learn what I could from the wizard. It was immediately obvious that Amie had some latent magical ability. Although I had an interest in magic, or at least the part which it could play in engineering and construction, I had no ability for it myself. Tarmas kindly told me that if I wished to denigrate the arts by turning them to nefarious purposes I would have to find someone else to teach me, and sent me back to my father.

I was skeptical when Daeghun sent me to Brother Merring. After all, what could I possibly learn from a priest? A priest who, unlike the rest of the village, didn't even worship Chauntea, but instead is a vassal of Lathander? Being Half-Elven, I, like Daeghun, put my belief and my faith in Tel'Seldarine, the Elven Gods, particularly in Rillifane Rallathil. I should mention here, perhaps, that 'Tally' is not my real name... it is a shortened form of the name my mother gave to me; an Elven name that is harsh on the eyes and worse on the tongue. Tally is just easier for everybody.

Brother Merring dutifully tried to educate me about Lathander, the Morninglord. And I admit that I _did_ find his teachings interesting, but mainly from a philosophical point of view. In that way, I am interested in _all_ Gods; I like to know what they're about, where they live, what they expect and what they can teach. For my twelfth birthday, my father gave me a book about the Gods (all of them), and I often spent hours discussing the various deities with Brother Merring. But it soon became obvious that I had no intention of switching my faith to Lathander. One thing that Brother Merring did do, however, was spark my interest in healing.

One hot and humid afternoon, as we were deep in discussion about Silvanus, and his role as Chauntea's opposite, we were interrupted by one of Pitney Lannon's boys. Panting and wide-eyed, he informed us that his father had fallen from the roof of the barn, where he had been fixing the leaking roof, and broken his leg. Brother Merring hastened to the scene, with me in tow. Pitney's leg was bent at a sickening angle, with broken bone protruding from his shin. The farmer was barely holding onto consciousness, clearly delirious with pain. Brother Merring forced a healing potion into him, and with the help of myself and Pitney's eldest son, took the unconscious man back to his small church.

I watched, fascinated, as Brother Merring worked on healing Pitney's wounds. He couldn't just use his divine magic for healing right away; first he had to properly set the leg. It was then, listening to Brother Merring talk, watching him operate, that I realised the body is just like one giant mechanical puzzle! Bones fit together held by joints and sinew and tendons, legs and arms work by balls and sockets, muscles create movement, veins and arteries supply blood... it was like my music box, only a thousand times more complicated. If I could fix my box so that the music played again and the Wooden Elves dances to the tune, could I also fix a broken body so that it lived once more? Eager to experiment, I set off into the swamp.

As you can imagine, my new-found fixation with cutting up dead things was a source of great disturbance to many within West Harbor. It seemed quite logical, to me, that if something was broken I ought to be able to fix it. I did not know that life is a fire, and once extinguished it takes divine intervention or an act of powerful magic to recreate that spark, to give back life. I became increasingly frustrated with my failures, and the swamp became increasingly littered with my failed experiments. Then I had the idea of replacing parts with other parts. If I had a broken cog, I would just replace it with a functional cog from something else. Soon, dead birds were turning up with the heads of mice, wildcats were turning up with raccoon legs, weasels were turning up with cat tails. Let's just say that my father wasn't very pleased, and leave it at that.

When Brother Merring became convinced that I was dabbling in the necromantic arts and refused to teach me further, Daeghun sent me to Georg for some militia training. Bevil, who was two years my senior, had already been training for over a year, and he welcomed me immediately. Almost everybody in the village had had militia training at some point in their lives; living in the Mere was dangerous, and any one of us might be called upon to defend our homes. Georg was not only the head of the militia, but also the 'mayor' of our dysfunctional little village. Everybody respected him, even Tarmas, and that's saying a lot.

Though I had no aptitude for the sword, I quickly learnt to be accurate with a bow. It wasn't long before Daeghun crafted me my own short bow, which I carried around with me everywhere. After that, the Lizardlings in the Mere became a little less dangerous to me. I often went out with my father, who was an expert marksman, and we would practise our archery together. I think that's when he finally stopped being worried about parenting, and we started to form a real bond. Over the next few years, as I worked at perfecting my archery technique, and continued my exploration of the Mere, I finally felt a little more... settled.

_Of Change_

I have often wondered about the nature of change, and the role it plays upon us mere mortals. Change is inevitable, as unstoppable as the seasons, and yet we often resist it, doing everything we can to prevent it from happening. Only when change is favourable, beneficial to us, do we embrace it openly. Yet would we grow, would we become the best that we can be, if change was not forced upon us?

There are three schools of thought, regarding the nature of change. The first is that everything happens for a reason. Changes are fated, part of our destiny. The second is that changes are of our own choice, that there is no such thing as fate, and it is a combination of choice and serendipity that determines our destiny. The third is that it doesn't really matter either way, because change is going to happen so you better stop wasting your time wondering about it, and get on with your life.

I tend to fall into the third school of thought. Change is part of life, and a person can go crazy asking themselves 'why' things happen. Knowing the 'why' doesn't change the event, it only shapes your future. And I have learnt that change is like a landslide or an avalanche; all it takes is one small pebble, a few flakes of snow, succumbing to gravity, and before you know it your life has spiralled out of control and you're buried in a heap of debris. How do you stop something like that?

The change which sparked the avalanche in my life occurred five days after my nineteenth birthday. It was the evening of the Harvest Brawl, a yearly festival of celebration observed by many villages in the Mere. West Harbor was attacked by Duergar, evil Dwarves of the Underdark, and by Bladelings, which are planar creatures rarely found in Faerûn. We lost many good people that night, including my friend Amie. I can speak of it calmly now, looking back at it, but at the time I was inconsolable. From my father, I learnt that our attackers had come searching for a shard of metal that had been found many years ago after the destruction of West Harbor, on the night when both my mother and Daeghun's wife had given their lives trying to save me. What our attackers could possibly want with a scrap of metal was beyond me, but at my father's behest I set out for the city of Neverwinter, to search for my uncle Duncan, who was also in possession of a shard.

Change is a fickle thing. Knowing what I know now, I can see that the event of that night, that the Bladeling attack on West Harbor, was not truly the start of the landslide of change. Going back, I can trace the changes to the night that the King of Shadows battled the forces of Neverwinter on the site of West Harbor, when the village was brought almost to ruin. I was just a baby, then. And I can trace the changes back further, to the time of the Illefarn Empire. And further, to the rise of Netheril. I'm sure that if I went back far enough, I could find the place where the very first pebble was cast down the side of the mountain; no doubt I'd find some nefarious God stood there, rubbing his hands and cackling with glee at the chaos wrought by his action. Regardless of when and where and how the first stone was cast, one thing led to another, and the entire chain of events culminated in me.

'All for the want of a horseshoe nail'.

_Of Friendship_

I have learnt, the hard way, that true friendships are rare and precious things; they should be nurtured, like tiny seeds, protected, like small saplings, and treasured, like the most valuable of jewels. Other than Bevil, Khelgar Ironfist is my oldest, and most trusted, friend. I met him on the first day of my journey to Neverwinter, outside the Weeping Willow Inn. From the moment I met him, I realised that he would be a very... unique... individual. Since he was also travelling to Neverwinter (to become a monk!) he decided to journey with me, and I was glad for the company.

Khelgar was the first friend I made on my journey, but he wasn't the last. I met Neeshka who, like me, was into the sneaksman's trade. We got on well together from the very start, though she had an unhealthy obsession with aquiring wealth that I just didn't share. In a way, our skills complimented each other; my knowledge of locks and traps was superior to hers, whereas she was excellent at sleight of hand. I couldn't pick a pocket if my life depended on it, but Neeshka's hands were always in other peoples' pockets. She claimed to be the best thief in Neverwinter, and it was a title I let her keep. In my experience, whenever you claim to be the best at something, some fool who feels he has something to prove comes along to challenge your title.

I also made a friend out of Elanee, a Wood Elf (and there go the little wooden couple dancing in my head) who was also a druid belonging to the Circle of Merdelain. With her help, we were able to fend off our pursuers, and make our way through the Mere faster than we might otherwise have been able. As you can imagine, an Elf, a Dwarf and a Tiefling thief made for quite interesting travelling companions. Though they were all suspicious of each other at first, they soon overcame their general misgivings when we realised we would either have to stick together or be cut down by the Bladelings and Duergar that pursued us.

I say that Khelgar is my closest friend, but perhaps I am merely biased. After arriving in Neverwinter, the aforementioned avalanche only increased in speed and ferocity. Back then, in the Mere with Khelgar by my side, times were simpler, I was more carefree. Had I known where I would eventually end up, I would have taken Khelgar and fled in the opposite direction. It is too bad that hindsight is never available in the present.

My 'uncle' Duncan was quite welcoming of me; like me, he was Half-Elven, and sympathetic to my cause. He gave me his shard and told me to speak to a sage called Aldanon about them. Of course, nothing is ever that simple. I had arrived in Neverwinter in the midst of a spate of murders. I wasn't worried, though; the victims were all middle-aged or elderly men, killed in their own homes, and the events were confined to the Blacklake District (that being the 'posh' part of the city). Naturally, that's where Aldanon lived.

Duncan had a friend, a Moon Elf wizard named Sand, who told me that only members of the Watch were allowed inside the Blacklake District. Luckily, fate (or serendipity, if you prefer) smiled on me. The Marshal of the Watch was from West Harbor, and I knew his family well. He put in a good word for me with the Captain, and in short order I was a member of the Watch.

As you can imagine, the jobs I was given were somewhat menial and often dangerous. Patrolling the streets of Neverwinter was risky at the best of times, and I'd been given assignment in the most dangerous area; the Docks. I not only had to put up with drunks and thieves, but also sailors and renegade sorcerers. One such sorcerer, a teenage girl named Qara, almost burnt down my Uncle's tavern during a dispute with some of the Neverwinter Academy students. As punishment, Duncan ordered her to help me or to wait tables in his tavern, the Sunken Flagon. Naturally, she chose to help me.

One of my missions was to travel to a place called Old Owl Well, to rescue an important emissary who had been sent by Waterdeep and then been kidnapped by orcs. During the journey I made another new friend out of Grobnar, a Gnomish bard who we met by chance. Like me, Grobnar was very interested in mechanical things. He enjoyed building things and inventing new things, and when he wasn't building or inventing, he was humming strange Gnomish songs (which are, actually, quite catchy).

It soon became obvious that Old Owl Well was literally _infested_ with orcs. They were everywhere, like weevils in a bag of flour. I was fortunate to find another ally; Casavir. He was a paladin of Tyr who considered it his duty to protect the people of Old Owl Well -- mainly farmers -- from orcish invasions. When I told him of the predicament with the emissary, he gladly volunteered to help.

Mission followed mission, and eventually I was allowed to visit Aldanon inside the Blacklake District. I quickly realised that he was quite eccentric, but he was able to tell me that the shards in my possession were part of a broken Githyanki Silver Sword. That explained why there had been a Githyanki mage amongst the enemy ranks at West Harbor; no doubt the Duergar and the Bladelings were in their employ, on a mission to reclaim the shards.

Aldanon informed me that an old court wizard by the name of Ammon Jerro had once owned one such Silver Sword, and that I might be able to find information about such weapons inside Jerro's haven. When I learnt that Ammon Jerro was dead, I turned to his next of kin, a woman named Shandra. I wasn't the only one interested in Shandra, however. The Githyanki reached her before I did, and tried to take her from her farm. My friends and I were able to thwart them, and Shandra agreed to return to Neverwinter with us, where she would be safe. Of course, 'safe' is quite a relative term, in Faerûn.

_Of Travelling_

The Githyanki are nothing, if not persistant. They attacked the Sunken Flagon, and kidnapped Shandra. I would like to say that I enlisted the help of a ranger named Bishop in tracking her down, but in reality, Duncan blackmailed him into helping us. Regardless of the methods, I was about to see a lot more of the Sword Coast than I wanted.

We followed the Githyanki through Neverwinter territory, through a village named Ember, and over the Luskan border. I was extremely hesitant to follow; Luskan was an enemy of Neverwinter, despite the 'treaty' that existed between them. I knew if we were caught we would be instantly killed, and I have never found the prospect of imminent death to be a great motivational tool. But Bishop seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going, so I let him lead us deeper and deeper into Luskan territory.

We ran into opposition in the form of a mage who commanded legions of devils and demons. His true purpose there wasn't known to me at the time, but as his followers attacked both myself and the Githyanki, I put him into the category of 'unknown', and kept a wary eye open for him. Fate (if it exists) has a wicked sense of humour.

The leader of the Githyanki invasion force was a woman named Zeeaire, and I was forced to slay her in order to free Shandra. From Zeeaire I learnt that I had a Silver Shard within my chest, and that the Githyanki needed the shards to fight an enemy dangerous beyond belief. I was just a casualty in their war, somebody they were willing to kill without a second thought merely to gain what they sought. Sometimes I think I should have let them take it.

Questioning Duncan revealed that my mother had been killed by the same shard that was lodged in my chest. It had passed through her and stuck inside me as she held me in her arms. He claimed that Daeghun had always planned to tell me, when he thought the time was right. I'm not sure what 'the right time' is exactly, but surely my father could have found it within the first nineteen years of my life? But that's a rant for another time.

I have never been one to seek fame; rather, it has been reluctantly forced upon me. With all the work I had been doing for the watch, my name was becoming quite well-known. And there were those who sought to use me to further their own goals, to twist my accomplishments into crimes. I had hardly been back in Neverwinter for two minutes when Sir Nevalle, one of Nasher's aides and a member of the elite Neverwinter Nine, informed me that I was accused by Luskan of the slaughter of Ember.

News to me, since when I had passed through it on the outward leg of my journey, the village had seemed relatively fine. To prevent me from being carted off to Luskan to experience 'low justice' and a probably death by hanging, Lord Nasher had me initiated into his knighthood -- as a lowly squire. He also gave me permission to travel back to Ember, to search for evidence of my innocence, and he coerced Sand, my father's friend, into helping me.

It seems that half of an adventurer's life is spent not having adventures, but in travelling from one adventure to the next. This is something common to both soldiers and adventurers, only they never tell you about it in the songs and the stories; who would sign up for either if they knew that you'd spent more time walking than in glorious battle?

I was eventually found innocent (of course) of the slaughter of Ember, and forced to fight in a Trial by Combat. Since you are reading this account, you've probably guessed by now that I won the fight, though it was difficult in more ways than one. My opponent was a man named Lorne Starling; he was my friend Bevil's elder brother, who had joined in the fight against Luskan years earlier, and had never been seen again. Obviously, he had defected. Even now, his body lies in the Tomb of Betrayers.

Following my trial, I learnt that Aldanon had been kidnapped by a Luskan mage named Black Garius, who styled himself as one of the Masters of Luskan. Of course, the Luskans denied that he was one of them, claiming that Garius had forced his will onto some of the more easily cowed of the Hosttower wizards. Garius, they informed me, had taken Aldanon to a place named Crossroad Keep, a former stronghold of the King of Shadows during his war against the Sword Coast, decades ago. Garius intended to perform a dark ritual, designed to bolster his own power by linking him to this 'King of Shadows'.

Naturally, Lord Nasher sent me to stop him.

_Of Battle_

Despite what I said previously, there is nothing glorious about battle. It is a bloody, messy affair, and the Realms would be a much better place if nobody had to fight. But people, being people, can't be trusted to do the right thing. So instead of diplomacy, they resort to violence. Leaders build armies to use not only against the wild beasts such as orcs and gnolls, but also against their neighbours. Instead of conquering with words and ideas, they conquer with weapons and the price is paid in blood.

I discovered, after I had defeated Garius and his cronies, that Aldanon was not the only prisoner being kept in the Keep. I also freed a Githzerai woman named Zhjaeve, who claimed to have travelled to Faerûn to help me in my battle against the one who wanted me dead; the King of Shadows. I was skeptical, at first, but Zhjaeve slowly began to win my trust. She told me of a ritual that I could undergo which would help me in my battle against the King of Shadows. So we set out for the Illefarn ruins of Arvahn.

There, we were forced to fight many, many times. Orcs, bugbears, goblins, the undead... our opponents were many and varied, and Arvahn was a difficult time not just for me, but for my companions too. We were all weary following our exploits in Luskan, and the battle at Crossroad Keep had taxed us further. We were all physically and mentally exhausted, barely able to lift our weapons by the time we had finished in Arvahn. I had visited all but one of the statues necessary for the Ritual of Purification, and we travelled by way of an Illefarn Song Portal to the site of the last.

They say that you can never cross the same river twice, and that once you leave home, you can never go back. The reasoning behind this is that once you have left your home, and seen all that the world has to offer, then returning to it, you find it small and dull, unable to satisfy your needs. The people are changed by your own experiences; your father doesn't seem as stern and daunting as he once did; your mother, once the only person who could tend your hurts, is just another aging house-wife; the village bully, once the bane of your life, is nothing but a dim-witted thug; the house where you grew up now stifles and confines you; the forest where you played are no longer mysterious and spooky but a pleasant woodland. I wish I had been able to return and find these things so.

The Song Portal took us not to the next Statue, but to West Harbor, which lay in ruins. Something terrible had happened, some awful force had overwhelmed the entire village, burning it and the people within it to ash. Nothing had been spared. My father's house, a short distance away atop a small hill, was no longer there. The barn and stables were piles of dust and char. It was as if some terrible force had come along and just wiped my home village from the Realms.

Since there was nothing else to be done there, my friends and I held a short, silent memorial for the people who had lost their lives. My biggest regret was that I hadn't been able to talk to my father one last time, to thank him for everything he had done for me, and to tell him that even though I never showed it, I did care for him. When the memorial was over, I led my friends into the Mere, along familiar childhood paths, to the Illefarn ruins where I had once played at being grown-up. Now, I wanted nothing more than to be that child again.

Standing in front of the Statue, which had been reduced to rubble, we found a minion of the enemy; an unholy Shadow Reaver. We battled the fiend and won, but Zhjaeve informed me that the creature's power was tied directly to the King of Shadows, and its essence would slowly reform in the heart of Meredelain. No matter how many times I cut the Reaver down, it would always return.

We discovered, as well, that somebody else, somebody other than me, had completed this last part of the Ritual of Purification. The statue lay now in ruins, the last victim of the slain Reaver. Our quest had been in vain; without the last part of the Ritual, the other parts would be rendered incomplete, far less effective than when used as a whole. As for who had taken the power of the statue... it could have been just about anybody.

I was naturally disheartened.

_Of Home_

I was lucky, in some ways. Though I was now well and truly orphaned, at least it had happened to me late in life. At least I had had the benefit of many years growing up in the Mere around people who cared for me. Most orphans are not that lucky; they turn to lives of crime or are forced into poverty or servitude. Yet even as I found my childhood home destroyed, I gained another.

Lord Nasher bequeathed to me the stronghold of Crossroad Keep, which I had previously liberated from Garius. As you can imagine, it was quite run down, in need of extensive repair work. Nasher expected me to make the Keep function again. He wanted it available for defence of Neverwinter. He wanted merchants to stop there. He wanted farmers to work the land. In short, he wanted it to generate money. To this day I'm still not entirely sure why he put me in charge of the place. I am about the least qualified person in the Realms to govern an outpost. But perhaps he saw something in me, something that told him I would enjoy the challenge. In the end, I did. The Keep wasn't really much different than my old music box, or the human body. To work, all of the cogs and gears had to turn fluidly. Only, this time it wasn't mechanical cogs, nor was it blood pumping around a body. Instead, it was people; soldiers, merchants, farmers, staff, entertainers, commanders, builders and travellers. These were my pieces, and it was my job to fit them all together in a way that made the whole thing _work_. I like to think I did a good job of it.

They say that the light shines brightest in the dark, and those were some pretty dark times for me indeed. Fortunately, there was light. Not everybody had been killed in West Harbor. Bevil turned up one day with Orlen, one of the farmers; they had escaped the slaughter and slowly made their way here. Daeghun also survived; he ghosted into the Keep one day as if nothing was out of the ordinary, completely unaffected by what had happed in West Harbor. He had survived by being absent, by scouting suspicious activity deep within the Mere.

And so my home became a home for others. Aldanon, the sage who had helped me, and who I had subsequently rescued from Garius, took upo residence in my newly restored library. I think that he barely even noticed that he wasn't in his own home, so enthralled was he with my books. My dungeon (bereft of all torture devices, naturally) became home to a giant, benevolent spider who went by the name of 'Kistrel'. That whole episode is rather a long story. Let me just say that Kistrel kept the Keep free of vermin, and leave it at that.

There were other regular faces around my home; Deekin was a kobold adventurer-turned-merchant who took up residence in one of the empty shops. Startear was a mage from the planar city of Sigil, who likewise sold his goods from an empty building. A monk volunteered to rebuild the ruined church, and I gladly left him to it. My uncle Duncan's former employee, Sal, took over the tavern within the Keep grounds, and I spent many an evening there, sitting beside the fire in deep contemplation. A halfling man named Guyven claimed one of the rooms within the Keep for himself, though truly I did not mind. I had more than enough space to go around, after all. I even took in one of Black Garius' former staff, a floozy by the name of Torio who dressed in the most inappropriate attire.

And so slowly, over time, I came to have a home again. Only this time I was under no delusions; I knew that it would not last forever.

_Of Alliances_

Aldanon's discovery of the location of Ammon Jerro's Haven was a little unwelcome. Since I had killed the githyanki leader, Zeeaire, I had not been bothered by any more of the planar peoples. And although I had collected several more shards since that time (or perhaps events were arranged in such a way that the shards found _me_) I was content to think nothing of them. Zhjaeve convinced me otherwise; I would need the reforged githyanki sword in order to defeat the King of Shadows, she advised me. With the Ritual of Purification incomplete, the githyanki silver sword was now my best bet.

Part of me wishes I had not listened to her. I lost the first of my friends, that day. To save our lives, Shandra sacrificed hers. She spilled her blood to release six demons and devils, banishing them back to their home planes. Too late we discovered that the fiends' master and captor was Ammon Jerro himself; Shandra's grandfather, not as dead as we had originally thought.

Looking back on events, I see now that Shandra's death was not entirely Ammon's fault. She was already close to death, weak from loss of blood, when Ammon ended her life. I think in some ways, he punished himself more than anybody else could have done. He assured me that when he died, his soul would not be going to a good place. He sounded sincere, and I decided not to punish him further.

And so we come back to fate (or serendipity). Ammon was the one who had completed the last part of the Ritual of Purification, before the Reaver had destroyed the statue. In the following days and weeks I found his experiences invaluable. He had fought the King of Shadows before, using the Sword of Gith, part of which was now lodged in my chest. With the help of both Ammon and Zhjaeve I was able to reforge the Sword, myself becoming the heart of the weapon.

Ammon was not my only ally. At Nasher's request I set out to build an army. Elanee helped me to gain the trust of the Lizardmen; they too had been displaced from the Mere by the growing Shadow, and were desperate to reclaim their home. Khelgar aided me in convincing the Dwarves of the Clan Ironfist to join our cause, and together we made our stand at Crossroad Keep.

I tried to secure the help of the Circle of Merdelain; my father had told me that the Circle still lived, hiding deep within the Mere. I travelled there with Elanee and the rest of my friends, but we found the Circle tainted, corrupted by the Shadow into complacency. They were hostile, forcing a confrontation which they did not survive. I am grateful that Elanee decided to stay with me after that.

Crossroad Keep became a busy place after that. I had an army of my own, comprised of Greycloaks and hired mercenaries. Finding enough space for them was difficult, especially with the Dwarves and Lizardmen cramped into the Keep as well. Finding food was even harder, and I'm not sure how but we just about managed to scrape by. It was probably a good thing, then, that we did not have to wait long.

_Of Betrayal_

The day that the Shadow advanced towards Crossroad Keep, Lord Nasher rode out to meet it. His forces lost the field that day, and Nasher himself was injured. He retreated back to the Keep, the last defencible place in Neverwinter's territory. The city itself had already been evacuated, the people fleeing to safer grounds. If we didn't turn back the Shadow here, it would run unchecked over Faerûn, swallowing all within its path.

They say that the night is darkest before the dawn, and it was during the darkness of night that they came. Undead beasts led by elite vampires; ghouls and ghasts to rend the flesh of our defenders, zombies and skeletons to scare the men. Through luck or skill we held out until dawn, until the rays of the sun rose over the horizon and burnt the eyes and flesh of the undead. Our enemy was pushed back, retreating to the forests and the cover of shadow. But we all knew that as soon as the sun dipped once again behind the horizon, the King of Shadows would push forward once more.

Desperate men do desperate things. I am not sure how desperate Bishop was, but he betrayed me and my allies that day; he sabotaged the Keep's gate and then ran off into the forest. Unable to lower the gate, we became vulnerable, a literal sitting duck. Some wanted to flee, but I forced them to stay. Perhaps it was wrong of me, to make them stay, fight, and die. But I knew that if we did not turn back the Shadow, by morning we would all be dead, and the Realms would not be safe.

Again they came, led by an avatar of the King of Shadows. It was a weak thing, a pale replica of the real King of Shadows, but it wreaked havoc amongst the army. Some who saw it dropped their weapons and fled. Others were paralysed by fright and stood still in fear whilst it cut them down. Others rushed at it, only to be killed as soon as they reached it.

It was magic more than anything that won the day; Sand, Qara, Elanee, Ammon and Zhjaeve rained down magical fury upon the avatar as Casavir, Khelgar, Neeshka, Grobnar and I tried to distract it with more conventional weapons. When dawn came again it found us victorious, and the grounds of the keep flowing red with the blood of our allies. We had driven the Shadow back to the Mere; with the avatar destroyed the undead fiends fled, afraid to face the harsh light of day.

With the Shadow on the run we decided to press our advantage. Aldanon transported us magically to the ancient Illefarn ruins deep within Meredelain, where the King of Shadows had made his base. There we did battle with yet more undead, and came upon an enemy we had thought defeated. Black Garius had been remade into a Reaver, twisted into a terrible fiend of magic and destruction. It was there that Bishop dared to show his face again, clad in the armour of the enemy. His only excuse for his betrayal was the story of a difficult childhood. I realised, then, that he had been wracked for so long by anger and guilt that little of himself truly remained. All that was left in his heart was darkness.

He was not the only one to betray me. Qara, hungry for power, allowed herself to be lured by Garius to his side. In a way, I feel sorry for her. She truly thought that she would be able to further her own power. She truly thought that she would survive. But then, she had always had a selfish streak; she had never cared for hard work and sacrifice, instead preferring the quick path to power. It would be her last mistake.

_Of Prices_

Bishop and Qara died for their betrayal. Garius fought on without them, summoning demons to do his bidding. These Ammon Jerro dealt with; such was his expertise. In the end, Garius died -- again -- proving that he had been no more all-powerful in death than he had been in life.

Only when we had defeated all of its minions did the King of Shadows finally appear. It was a terrible, monstrous thing, stepping out of a portal that led to the Plane of Shadows. This... thing... had once been a person. Once it had been a man who had given his life to become the Guardian of the Illefarn empire. Now, twisted by the Shadow Weave, it had become a thing of death and destruction.

But even so, part of the Guardian still remained. It thought that what it was doing was for the good of the long-dead Illefarn society. It thought that it was protecting Illefarn's borders from enemies of the empire. It even tried to coax me into joining it, foolish thing. This construct had destroyed everything that I held dear; it had killed my home, taken friends from me, turned others against me. It tainted everything that it touched... how could I allow it to live?

The ensuing battle was fierce, and we paid a heavy price for our victory. Elanee was struck down, killed before my eyes. Grobnar was likewise slain; his tiny body, lying in a pool of his own blood, bereft of the vibrant life which he formerly possessed, was one of the saddest things I have ever seen.

Four of my companions dead; two by my hand, or close enough. That was the price that we paid to save the Sword Coast, and the whole of Faerûn, from the King of Shadows. That was the price that we paid to destroy the last remnant of the Illefarn empire, severing its ties to the Shadow Weave, destroying its armoured body, putting the soul of the man who had given his life to become it finally to rest.

You must be wondering, now, what I have been doing in the year since then. You must be curious about my actions and decisions after the end of my adventures. Well, I hope I don't disappoint you, reader, but my adventures did not end there. In fact, my adventures have only just begun.


End file.
